Gas barbecue grills have become very popular as outdoor cooking devices, and usually consist of a cart supporting a cooking chamber supported thereon. The cooking chamber usually has gas burners in the lower portion of the chamber with a grid structure above the gas burners that supports a heat-absorbing material, such as lava rock, or in the case of higher-end grills, a conductive material, such as multiple sear bars. A cooking grid is positioned above and spaced from the sear bars or lava rock and supports food which is to be cooked.
The gas burners are generally a series of tubes or flat channels having a plurality of small openings or apertures on an upper or side surface. Typically, a single manifold feeds gas to the burners through at least one gas control valve, the gas being supplied to the manifold from a gas supply inlet tube linking the manifold to a compressed gas source, such as a liquid propane gas (1 pg)--usually held within a tank stored on the cart below the cooking vessel. A gas flow is brought to the burner assembly where it is ignited to form a flame which serves as a primary heat source for cooking within the cooking chamber. Cooking may be conducted directly by contacting food with the resulting flame, or indirectly by exposure of the food to radiant heat from the sear bars or lava rock discussed previously.
A general principle for the burner assembly is to provide an even distribution of heat throughout the cooking surface of the cooking chamber. Prior art burners are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,267,816 to Koziol; U.S. Pat. No. 4,485,799 to Perez; and, U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,853 to Stephen. The present invention provides improvements to the prior art grills by providing enhanced cooking efficiency and ignitor assemblies.